Tag Archives: schizophrenia

Today is June 22, 2015. I am alive and well.

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I am an alcoholic. My natural state is one of drunkenness, yet I’m sober 21 years. I have schizophrenia. My natural state is one of psychosis, yet I’ve been hospital free for eight years. How do these miracles happen? I allow a spiritual God in my life and take right action.

God is everywhere outside and in our personhood. I can know myself deeply and get beyond self. Self is connected to all. Self is connected to God. The more aware I am, the stronger my source of instinct and intuition. Think of the notes of a symphony. Think of trees and leaves.

God will not do for me what I can do for myself, but God will do for me what I can’t. God lifted me from my natural states of being. Today I live a joyous life.

I’ve heard it said that I need not apologize for my God. I hope that you who follow my blog aren’t put off by my faith and belief in divine intervention. The artist William Blake called what he believed in as cosmic imagination. I like this. I am free to contemplate a life filled with cosmic imagination. With this contemplation comes a belief that I call shall not want. Eventually, I get to this point.

I want a house with a fenced in yard and doggie door complete with dogs. I wish I could follow my ex and spend time with his grandchildren. They call me Auntie Kristina. I hope they don’t forget me.

My desire for things may not pass, but I will acknowledge today that I want for nothing. I have everything I need today to have a joyous life filled with purpose and meaning.

Grams and Annie, my cats, sleep on me as I write this from my bed. When I brought them home from the Humane Society, I thought they were feral. I thought they would have nothing to do with me. How wrong I was. Grams, the neediest, often pesters me for pets and needs my full attention. She bats at my hand when I hold the phone, a book, or a pen.

Cats are of God. I actually believe they are psychic. They know when dead family members and friends enter the room. I take comfort in this like I do while eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream.

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Today is October 28, 2014. I am alive and well.

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excerpt from my memoir in progress

My character in the story “A Meditation on Panty Hose” speaks to perceptions being not what they are. Perceptions shape our experience of things. My perception camera was broken for many years.

My broken camera accelerated my alcoholism. I believed when drunk, I was really sure footed although I was falling all over myself. I believed when drunk, that I was artistically brilliant even though I could not decipher my scribbling from the afternoon or evening before. When drunk, I was more social. When drunk, people tried to avoid me because I was stumbling all over myself with words that made no sense. When drunk, the world was right even when I came to on the bathroom floor of a bar having passed out and puked all over myself. I was beautiful; just misunderstood.

When sober without a 12 step program, I was terrified of everything. I knew people were talking about me behind my back, even strangers. I knew snot was hanging from my nose. I knew the government would come knocking on my door. I was important; I was a nobody. It was impossible for me to differentiate the false from the truth. Both my alcoholism and my schizophrenia kept me from seeing the truth for years.

Today, truth matters to me. If I have a problem standing in the truth, I reach out to friends who provide me with strong legs and broad shoulders. I have no need to be sheltered from the truth today. The truth will always set me soaring.

Today is May 25, 2014. I am alive and well.

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Michael Greenberg writes in Hurry Down Sunshine “It’s a terrible paradox–the mind falls in love with psychosis.” When I’m psychotic, I don’t understand that I’m psychotic. My psychosis doesn’t bother me. It is the people around me who are alarmed. I sometimes think I am a better writer when psychotic. My spiritual mentor has to remind me that I don’t write things that are lucid when psychotic. I have my own special language. I am paranoid that my medication robs me of some of my creative instinct, but then again without medication my mind does get sick. My prescribing physicians have done their best to not numb my mind, burying it in a haze of pills. Burying me in a cocktail so powerful that the best I can do is stare at the television with no sight, drooling. Seriously, I have been over medicated at times, unable to bend my arm and turn right. I may have to struggle a bit more on some days to stay in the common reality, but stay I do. Most of the time.

Today is March 20, 2014. I am alive and well.

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I just finished a book called Waiting, by Marya Hornbacher. It is a Nonbeliever’s higher power. In other words, Marya is an atheist with an amazing belief in the spiritual. I am not an atheist, but I found the book to be really engaging, and as I said, spiritual. It helped me understand my atheist friend a little more, and my friend is absolutely one of the most spiritual people I know.

Excerpt from book 2, currently untitled–

The gray is slipping from my mind. I have yet to jump into the pool in my dream. My sleep is disturbed by the call of the psych tech announcing medication time. It is morning. The Haldol caused me to sleep through the night. I wake as if there are dimes on my eyeballs and gravel in my mouth. The gravel tastes of mint. I have no idea why. Mouth wash is not allowed on the unit because of its alcohol content. I wish to go back to the pantry of my mind. Instead, I am forced to stand. Spirit pushes me out of bed. All days to Spirit are moments of possibility to meet God. Spirit promises to take me with her. We will one day meet God together. In the meantime, I can pray for vision.

Thank you for your readership.

Today is March 10, 2014. I am alive and well.

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Let my spiritual voice speak. I am very interested in this. As a person with schizophrenia, how do I know when I’m coming from a delusional place? What about the voices I hear; do they blend together creating a new voice I can trust? I think not. If I listen deeply enough, my spirit blankets me. It allows for the goodness that is me to come to the surface. I glow in a spiritual essence. On bad days, the voices want to strip me of this, leaving me vulnerable to chaos. Chaos is not cemented to my life, rather it is a paper bag that disintegrates when a match lights its corner. I am free. Spirit resides inside of me and prompts me to eat oranges.

Today is February 24, 1014. I am alive and well despite challenges.

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The good thing about being sober and in recovery from my schizophrenia is that things change. The little energizer bunny is no longer running laps around my mind. In fact, he didn’t even finish a marathon, just a couple of miles that took an hour or so. 

I still hear voices which isn’t a big deal to me because mostly they are just a hum, or garbled, acting like a dog in heat who chases her tail and then lays quiet when there is no partner to find.

This morning, I managed to drag my happy ass to the gym. Quite the feat. I often wrestle with should I write when first up, or should I walk on the treadmill at the gym first. The treadmill usual wins out, especially if I know when I get home that I will have several hours to write and read, and yes my work practices as a writer includes reading; I simply try not to use reading as a form of procrastinating. Admittedly, I have avoided the terror involved in starting writing by procrastinating. But the procrastination is anxiety building, so I forge on writing sentence after sentence in a slow rumba, allowing the fear to silently leave me without protest. I seek the zone, and find it. It is glorious.

Today is February 21, 2014. I am alive and not feeling well.

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I’m having anxiety that just won’t quit; the little Energizer bunny is making tracks around my brain. Maybe you are too young to remember the Energizer bunny. Is the bunny still around? I feel totally disembodied from my body. The voices say, now you are typing, and so I am. I watch my fingers press the keys, but I don’t feel home. I don’t feel grounded. I am just watching my body do things and listening to the voices report this to me. It is not a good feeling. But then there is deep breathing. This helps me.

On an upside, my friends are writing me of their spiritual practices. I didn’t think my friends could amaze me any more, but they do, they so do amaze me! It feels good in the world to have them in it.

Thanks for your readership.

Today is February 14, 2014. I am alive and well.

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I emphasize being well because well was not always the case. I use to spend a great deal of time in hospitals. In and out, in and out every couple of months due to the flare up of my schizophrenia. I have been hospital free now for 6 years, maybe 7. I credit this to the right mix of medications and my determination not to miss out on life. Life can be crushing at times, but after kicking the bricks off there is exquisite peace. Peace the size of a shower stall in which I fit. 

For Valentine’s Day, Guy took me to breakfast, gave me a stuffed bear and a beautiful card with all the right words.

Hope your day is filled with love. Thank you for your readership.

Today is February 11, 2014. I am alive and well.

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Gertrude Stein says it takes a long time to become a genius. She believed herself to be one of three geniuses. The other two were Alfred North Whitehead and Picasso. I wonder if I spent enough time in my study, contemplating things and writing in response to the air, if I too could prosper to genius. I doubt it, and if I could I think nothing in my life would change. What changes in life when one becomes a genius? Maybe it’s a silk coat meant to impress someone outside of self. Today, I don’t need reassurance outside my self. I do what I do because I know how to do nothing else….other than watch trashy television….ha. And although I said that I don’t need reassurance, reassurance is always a very nice thing that keeps me going if I am struggling with simply the right word.

Thanks for your readership.

It is February 10, 2014. I am alive and well.

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It feels like the trees have tipped south again. I am afraid of foliage laying on barren ground. Am I going to be able to write about myself for another 300 pages? Why would I want to do this? Is writing about the self the same as having a feeling of self importance? I don’t feel self important; I feel, curious. I’m not a writer who knows what I will write before sitting down. And in sitting down, it could be a good twenty minutes before I write a sentence and then get up to stretch. I find myself walking to the kitchen in search of water often. Is this a form of procrastination? I think not. I think it is a brief time in which I can let resonate the sentence or sentences I have just written. 

Thank you for your readership. Here’s toasting another day of inspiration.